It is known in the art relating to powertrain and front suspension mounting arrangements for front-wheel-drive vehicles to provide a rigid subframe cradle, separate from the vehicle body, to support such arrangements. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,517, issued Dec. 23, 1980, to Harlow, Jr. et al., a front-wheel-drive vehicle is shown having a powertrain with a transversely positioned engine and transmission together with independent front wheel suspensions each with a control arm. The Harlow patent discloses a cradle to which the control arms are swingably mounted while a plurality of cushion mounts support the cradle at high impedance points on the vehicle body.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,870, issued Dec. 27, 1994 to Smith et al., discloses a mounting structure for a vehicle front engine and an operatively interconnected transmission mounted on a subframe cradle. The Smith cradle also supports each front wheel suspension system lower control arm by means of its pair of legs adapted to be pivotally connected at their ends to a side of the cradle.